RoboCop: Hominem Ex Machina
RoboCop: Hominem Ex Machina is the fourth of the Boom! comics set in the universe of the 2014 RoboCop, written by Michael Moreci and art by Jason Copland. Plot Night, in Detroit, and RoboCop swings by a cable from one high rise building into the windows of another, to affect the arrest of one Marcus Mayne and his drug gang. Facing small arms fire, he retaliates with the taser, pacifying Mayne and his accomplices. The next morning, Jack Lewis is on stakeout, watching RoboCop as he pursues the day's casework, arresting murder suspect Kenny Walters. Walters, like Mayne, needs to be tased, but Walters's child, a young girl, runs into the room, shocked and upset at what she's seen. RoboCop staggers out of the house, clutching his head, collapsing on the lawn, with a vision of David presenting him a drawing of a police officer, labeled "Good Guy". Lewis helps bring Alex back to the lab, where Norton and Kim run a battery of tests, but are unable to determine the cause of his breakdown. Lewis suggests, dryly, that maybe it's not the hardware that's the problem, but Alex "revolting" against the system. Norton derides the idea, insisting that Lewis can get back to him when he has a solid scientific test for the soul. A news broadcast that Alex is watching indicates that while he's been down for testing, crime has been skyrocketing, and the next scene, showing Lewis investigating a gun store robbery, has Lewis witness a bunch of brazen thugs, looting and setting fire to cars in the street. As Alex watches these new broadcasts on a newsfeed, Norton and Kim note an "intense emotional response", which they are considering diagnostic for Alex's breakdown. They continue their process, until the news shows one of the criminals insisting that the riots are all because of RoboCop's crackdown on crime. Alex has another memory flash, of Clara, trying to remind him to unwind after work, then the scene cuts to Norton and Kim, having run into another diagnostic dead end, trying to convince Lewis that Alex is not ready to go back on the streets yet. However, another news broadcast has escalated the stakes: the thugs have taken a schoolbus hostage and threaten to kill one of the schoolchildren aboard until RoboCop is brought to them, dead or alive. At this point, Alex breaks free, determined to confront the thugs, giving them exactly what they asked for. He rides in, under heavy fire, carefully only tasing the hostage takers, until there's only the boss left, holding a gun to a child's head. There's a stand-off, the boss now deciding he wants none of RoboCop, ordering him to get back on his bike and leave, when Lewis tases him from behind. The freed child hugs RoboCop's leg, and Lewis asks if this means RoboCop has a clean bill of health. Alex answers only that he's ready to get back to work, before he rides off to begin the cleanup. Category:Boom! Comics Category:Comics‏